Stellar and substellar companions from Gaia EDR3

Proper motion anomaly and common proper motion pairs

Pierre Kervella, Frédéric Arenou, Frédéric Thévenin 2022,
Astronomy & Astrophysics, 657, A7, doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202142146 (open access)

Left panel: detection of the planet Epsilon Eridani b from its effect on the proper motion of its parent star (proper motion anomaly).
Right panel: identification of a common proper motion companion of the pulsating red giant star L2 Puppis, that is likely gravitationally bound.

We assembled catalogs of Hipparcos-Gaia EDR3 proper motion anomaly and resolved common proper motion pairs within 100 parsecs for the identification of binary and multiple stars. These catalogs are available through the VizieR service of the Centre de Données Astronomiques de Strasbourg (CDS), where they can be accessed using e.g., the Astroquery python library that is part of the Astropy library. They can also be downloaded from the following links in various formats:

A short python code to plot the sensitivity function m2(r) for the companion mass and orbital radius is available here:

Sensitivity function for the companion mass and orbital radius, for a solar-like star and a tangential velocity anomaly of 5 +/- 2 m/s.